Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year!

My semester is over.  The holidays are over.  You would think I would have a nice little break then, but no, there's still so much I have to do in the next couple weeks.  But thankfully it will all be dying down soon.

Looking forward to this year, I'm starting 2 KALs today.  Well, sorta.  I'm officially starting one, and I need to buy the yarn for the other one on Tuesday.

Moody Hose
This knit-along is hosted by the Long Socks group on Ravelry.  We will be knitting Moody Hose by Peggy Boisvert.  From the actual pattern:


I designed these after the hose we see Professor Moody wearing for one second at the Yule Ball in the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was intregued by the calf shaping, as it doesn’t seem to follow conventional stocking rules. This is my own interpretation of his kilthose.
These are traditionally knitted cuff-down calf length stockings with a fold over top. There are “clocks” running down the inside and outside of the leg, all decreasing occurs at 4 points next to these clocks, there is no back seam. The clock design incorporates a 5 stitch twisted ribbed cable and a 6 stitch zigzag brocade panel that counts rounds between cable crosses. All decreases occur during cable cross rounds so there is very little need for the chart or pattern once you understand how it works. The heel is done in heel stitch and is started one pattern repeat above the ankle split. The clocks continue into the foot, the sock ends with a plain toe.


I love the look of the pattern and I can't wait to make these socks.  I'm not so crazy about how the pattern was written.  Because the only pattern information is posted on her website, it's not as user friendly as a pdf file.  Everything is very bunched together and some parts aren't explained well.  And the chart!  Oh, the chart. She wrote it out on graph paper (points for ingenuous thinking!), but she says the chart is to be worked top to bottom, left to right.  ...?!?!?!?!?!  Sooooo, completely backwards of every other knitting chart ever.  Gee, thanks.  This really isn't such a big deal to me since I don't have access to a printer until I go back to Pace- I write my patterns out on index cards or in notebooks that I keep with the pattern, including the chart.  So I re-wrote the chart of my index card to be read the traditional way.  So far, I've cast on 100 sts for one sock. I didn't have much energy left for it last night.  I'll be working on it today, doing both socks at the same time.

Whenever I make a Knit Picks order, I always make sure I reach that $50 for free shipping.  I buy sock yarn if I'm not in dire need of something specific, because sock yarn can always be made into simple socks if I don't have a plan for it.  Recently, I order from them because they were having a sale and I stocked up on sock yarn.  Score for me!  I went stash shopping and found some Stroll in a greenish-blue to use for this project.  Mine is a little bright, but I think it will still look great in the patterning of the sock.


Skacel/Knit Purl Hunter KAL #1
This KAL is being sponsored by Skacel in honor of twenty years of ZItron Trekking Yarn.  The designs are by Knit Purl Hunter, aka Michelle Hunter.  This will be a 6-month, 6-project KAL that includes prizes (not sure how this works yet).  I found out about it when I went to Infinite Yarns* with Julia recently.  They're also hosting a KAL Meetup every Friday night for it.  So far, the only instructions we've been given are to cast on and do the toe increases.  We get the next installment of instructions on the 8th.  Julia can't make it to this Friday's meetup and I probably won't go because, well, how long does it really take to do some toe increases?  But I do have to go to the shop for my yarn.

The yarn for this project will be Trekking XXL and the suggested colorway is "Susanne."  Skacel will donate $10 from each purchase to the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.  It's a blue just as bright as my other sock KAL, but this one is a more true blue than a greenish blue.


I can't wait to get these projects going and get some pictures taken!  I have no pictures to share because I broke the adapter for my memory card (I was using an SD Mini made for cell phones because I didn't have the money for a regular sized one, but without the adapter I couldn't get the pictures onto the computer).  I now have a new mini with a new adapter, and hopefully I'll be buying a real memory card with my Christmas money so I can share all the great things I've been working on.




*If you'd like to join the KAL but your LYS doesn't carry the yarn, Infinite Yarns has an online store!

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